This week kicked my butt

 It had the same effect on my garden.

Although my garden resembles a bit how I feel , it's state of being mostly dead was brought on by a sudden change in temperature.   Last Sunday we had a 30 degree Celsius (86 F) hot summer day a couple days later we reached -8 (17.6 F).  My garden didn't like it so much.  I'm not that thrilled with the climate change either.  

However, my own state of mostly dead was brought on by these hooligans...and a mischievous 18 month old. 

It's my own fault really.

I tried to take them from this... 

to this.  Cold turkey.

{yes her hair always looks like that}

I was prepared.  I had been reading about educational philosophies, methods, and strategies.  I had wonderful plans, schedules, and ambition for our first full week of educating my kidlets.

 I'm pleased to report that it all went perfectly as planned, the children were eager to do their morning chores, and they studied with intensity from their new school books...

for the first 10 minutes.

It went great.

Then the 1 year old grabbed all the pencils, snuck off with the markers, chewed up the eraser, dumped out the flashcards, and turned a library book into her sketch pad.

My pre-schooler eagerly practiced his letters 

until he began a farting noise competition.

Aili won.

I bet you didn't know that kids could eat breakfast at 8 am ...

and then be STARVING at 9am

about 2 minutes after picking up their pencils.  

5 days

have never felt so long.

I may not survive.

Next year I'm adding a large bottle of of wine and a long straw to my first week of school survival supply list.

Maybe it would be better to ease back into incorporating curriculum/ book work into our day rather than to jump in with all 10 feet.  

I must remember for next year that the first week is going to suck and not to even bother with my white board until after harvest.   

I think if we didn't have such extreme weather I would prefer to reconfigure our home learning year into 3 months on, 1 month off.  That way we get breaks more regularly and none of them are long enough to completely forget everything.  We may work towards something more like that in the future. 

 Flexibility is a perk.

I hate how I'm already battling the insecurity, doubts, guilt, fear, and inadequacy that seems to come with  outside the box motherhood...or motherhood in general  There are moments when I am confident we'll get our act together, and I see so much value in our family integrated education.  Then there are moments when I want to drop them off  boarding school and drive far far away.  

  Seriously.  

This week I said at least three times "Knock it off, and get to work, or I'm putting you back in regular school!"

Knocking the dust off these summertime brains has been harder than I anticipated, I think it's been more like sanding off rust.  

This harvest season is getting old.  My husband is burnt out from working long hard hours in the field.

I'm burnt out from parenting long hard hours at home. 

We're getting less sleep.

 Tempers are short.  

Exhaustion is setting in.  

On the bright side we've got a long winter to look forward to.

Sigh.

Thank God it's Friday..and next week is a fresh start.